Adrift
by moodiful819
Summary: [1/6] The sea always comes bearing gifts, but timing is everything. [Kakasaku Mermaid AU. Cross-posted from tumblr.]


People have been requesting that I post my tumblr stuff here as well, so here I am. Long story short, a bunch of personal problems and graduate school have kept me away from this site. I'm more active on my tumblr, but I'll try to be more active on here and my AO3 too.

Inspired by youkaiyume's artwork.

* * *

"Your boyfriend is here again."

Sakura responds without missing a beat. "He's not my boyfriend," she tells her first mate, but it doesn't stop her from capping her inkwell and rolling up their ship's overdue inventory report.

Getting up from her seat, she breezes past Naruto with all the confidence and gravitas befitting her rank as ship captain. As she walks by him, she casts a quick glance at the mound cradled in the blonde's hands and the look is all Naruto needs to shoot her a disappointed pout.

"It's never gonna change, Sakura-chan. All he ever gives you is fish," he whines. "Just once, I'd wish he'd give us something really good like treasure. Or ramen!"

"And where is he going to find noodles in the middle of the ocean?" she asks with a laugh, a crisp bell-like sound. For some on her crew, there is a rumor that the sound actually comes from a fairy locked in a prison she keeps in her pocket, the source of their captain's unholy strength and seeming immortality no matter how close death draws near. Sakura does not blame them for the story, no matter how farcical. She's a woman hardened by the sword as well as the seas. With the amount of blood that trails after her, there is little reason to smile. In the past, only Naruto, her oldest and dearest friend, ever had any chance of making her grin and laugh, but lately there have been other reasons.

Walking to the starboard side, she leans against the railing and offers a warm smile to her visitor, watching as his silvery head bobs above the waves.

"Back again?" she asks, though it is a redundant question. This merman has followed her ship everyday since she rescued him from those merchants on the Far Continent. At first, she and her crew had tried to deter him and urge him back to the open waters, but after two weeks with no progress, they now merely leave him alone.

"You're late, you know," she tells him, laughing at her own joke. Though he is their constant companion, he only ever appears to them after the sun is well into the sky. The earliest she has ever seen him appear is around 10 in the morning when the crew is doing drills on the deck, but she wonders if he even understands her critique. Does he even understand time? Or do the oceans merely pass in one seamless blur from light to dark and back again? In her idle hours, she sometimes wonders exactly how old he is. One thing's for certain, he's much older than her…

There is a glimmer and a flash. The memory lashes out at her like the shriek of clashing swords. It is dark. On the floor, a low-lit lamp rolls drunkenly, listing with the tide. In the dark, she can see the black advance of the water soaking her pant leg. Around her hand, she can feel his tail coil, while by her ear, she can hear his breath hiss, labored and charged as he struggles to find purchase on this strange land. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the glint of his delicate ear fins, as fine as gossamer wings. It is as if the gods themselves had weaved them, and a part of her wants to break free and touch them, but a rough spasm on his end reminds her of the panicked, undulous weight pinning her down. Holding her against the wall, his tail coils tighter, and the feeling is rough, strong, and supple on her palm.

Quickly, she tosses the memory aside and spits out the first thing she can think of. Anything to distract herself.

"I'm thinking of a name for you!" She says this with more verve than she means to include. Already, she can feel some of her crew give her covert looks over their shoulders, but her own sense of embarrassment is more acute. It was only because he came up in conversation so much between Naruto and her that she felt obliged to give him a name. She couldn't keep calling him "Sharkie," but she was not going to call him "Sail-Ears" like Naruto suggested. She had tried to come up with ideas in the past few weeks, but so far, the winner seemed to be "Mr. Silver Flash."

A deep, disapproving frown tells her exactly what he thinks of that.

She throws her hands up in exasperation. "Well it's not like you can tell me what your name is! It doesn't even seem like you can talk, and even if you could, I don't even know if you understand me!" She lowers her head into the cradle of her arms on the railing. "I bet you don't even know my name," she grumbles.

"Sah-koo-rah."

Instantly, she raises her head and stares down at him, half-bewildered, half-seeking. She tells herself she has misheard him–wishful thinking. It is the cry of the gulls, the crash of the waves against the boat–anything to roar out the sound and the creeping ecstasy of hope.

Her tone is breathless. "Say it again."

Head bobbing above the waves, he obliges her. "Sakura."

His pronunciation is stilted. Even at a distance, she can see the befuddlement that tinges the concentration knitting his brows–but it is clearer. More confident, and she would have never guessed that her companion had such a gift.

"How did you learn how to do that?"

The merman dips his head, covering the lower half of his face in a mask of water. Above the surface, the crests of his ear-fins continue to gleam a rich aquamarine and she watches as the quivering wave of his mouth opens and bubbles rise to the surface. Immediately, she understands: He has been practicing…

 _ **For her.**_

She swallows hard at the thought. "What…what's your name?"

Rising to the surface, he looks up at her and places a hand over his chest. "Ka-ka-shi," he says, his words punctuated once more by a tiny hiss like the ocean spray that batters her lovely vessel. It is probably due to water escaping his gills, she thinks to herself, but the thought does not linger in her mind. There are more pressing things at hand, like the worn noble air that carries his hand and surrounds him as he speaks, and the depth of his voice, husky and roughened by the salt of his home and becoming more honeyed to her ear with every encounter.

In a far corner of her mind, she can sense the danger she is courting here, but there are so many other things swirling in her gut and the feeling is lost in her excitement that Kakashi has a name and can talk.

"I have to tell Naruto," she says to herself, and the desire to share this moment of triumph compels her from the railing. It drives her away with the speed and fury of a hurricane, nearly ripping the pins off her head as she races to catch her friend before his mid-morning nap.

But she has gone too quickly, and in her haste, leaves when she should have stayed. There was one more message to be relayed, one more missive to be sent.

Clearing his throat once more, he steels his lungs, clenches a fist under the water, and shakes the thin trails of blood from his gill slits. As he watches it disperse, he puts his last shred of energy into the voice he has cobbled together over the course of many months and forces the word from his lips.

 _"Love,"_ he manages to croak, but by then, she is gone. The deck is empty, and alone, Kakashi bobs in the water and waits like a bottle cast out at sea.


End file.
